


Discovery

by mewpichu



Series: Tony's Not So Great Day [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Crying, Established Relationship, Hurt Steve Rogers, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Iron Man 3, Protective Steve Rogers, Rape Aftermath, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5278844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mewpichu/pseuds/mewpichu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was no way to muscle himself out of this one. He no longer felt like a super soldier, but like the scrawny little kid in the streets of Brooklyn, who always tried picking fights with the bigger guys and lost every single one.</p><p>*Set in between Slap and Normalcy*</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> So I just kinda wrote this instead of writing an essay. Procrastination!! I'm gonna go write that paper now...
> 
> Non beta-ed. Enjoy!

_“Steve, we found him,”_ Natasha Romanoff said into the phone, _“We just finished extraction. I’m just giving you a heads up, he’s not in good shape. We’re on our way to SHIELD Medical, ETA fifteen minutes._ ”

“Ok,” Steve replied. His mouth was completely dry. “Ok. I’ll meet you there.”

Unknown to Natasha, Steve was already deep in the bowels of the New York City branch of SHIELD, pacing back and forth. He never had any doubt that the team would find Tony. He couldn’t have any doubt. Steve wanted to go out into the field himself, uncomfortable with his best friend and lover’s life being in hands that weren’t his. But he was emotionally compromised, they said. He was too invested in the situation. Steve didn’t fight them on it. He knew it was true.

Tony had gone missing three days prior. He had some sort of business meeting that he never came back from. Steve knew something was up when the inventor didn’t show up for dinner that night. And as forgetful as the man was sometimes, he somehow never forgot their weekly dinners together. Steve brought it up with the team, but it was dismissed. Tony was only human, after all. No matter how impossible it seemed, he could make mistakes like anyone else.

But when Tony didn’t show up the next day, the team got worried. Natasha and Clint began an investigation, searching for where Tony may have ended up. Although he was most likely to be in a drunken stupor in some bar somewhere, their worst fear was that the man would have somehow ended up in a country on the other side of the world. Who knows what the Chinese or the Russians would do if they were to get their hands on Tony Stark. Just the thought made Steve shudder. That’s why he was so relieved when Natasha told him about the tip she got through one of her contacts, telling her that he was in New York City, in Brooklyn.

And now, on the third day, they found him. Steve thanked whatever higher power was up there because _they found him_.

Steve wanted to be there, rescuing Tony. He knew Natasha and Clint and whatever SHIELD agents they brought with them were some of the most capable people on the planet, but god dammit he wanted to be there. He wanted to be there to punch this… this Caleb Jones in the goddamn face until his nose was a crater. He wanted to be there to be the first one to embrace the love of his life.

What Steve really wanted right now more than anything was to punch the wall with all his considerable super soldier strength. It wouldn’t be fair to the nurses and doctors, he knew, to unnecessarily scare them like that. Steve just needed to filter this bubbling anger out somehow, so he continued to pace. He paced as if his sneakers would leave a trail in the linoleum floor. Steve had already taken out fifteen punching bags over this ordeal and he really felt like he could use another right now. So he paced.

He occasionally eyed the emergency door, imagining a table surrounded by people being rolled in. He imagined Tony’s body, limp, perhaps covered by a blanket, on a gurney as they wheel him into the ward. When the doors did finally open, however, the sight was a little different than he had imagined it.

The two doors slammed open as the gurney was pushed in. When Natasha said Tony was not in good shape, she wasn’t kidding. He was not only awake, he was thrashing. His screams carried through the hallway. He wasn’t saying anything intelligent, just purely screaming. There were SHIELD agents on either side of him holding down his arms and an agent at the foot of the gurney, holding down his legs. They were obviously making do with a gurney that had no restraints, that was not meant to handle someone violent. The bright orange shock blanket was pulled up to his chest, leaving his shoulders and arms uncovered. Steve saw bruising on his wrists that indicated some sort of metal restraint, as well as purple marks dotting his arms. Four IVs were attached to his arms, two of the red and two of them clear. Steve had absolutely no idea what they were for. He assumed that one of the clear ones was water, for hydration, but the red ones looked too much like blood for his comfort.

“He just keeps struggling. Why can’t we tranq him?” one the SHIELD agents, the one holding his right arm down, exclaimed.

“We don’t know what’s in his system,” a woman, one of the doctors judging by the long white coat, responded calmly, “Until we know what he’s been drugged with, it would be detrimental and dangerous to introduce anything new.”

Well shit. Steve followed the gurney through the winding hallways. So not only has his boyfriend been missing for the last few days, but he’s been drugged up to the gills with who knows what.

Tony was rolled into another room and Steve followed closely behind. There was a nurse trying to stop him, giving him the _friends and family are not allowed_ speech, which we promptly didn’t listen to while forcefully pushing himself past the blockade of people. While Steve felt he needed to be in the room, he had the respect to stay in the corner and out of the way. It would only hurt Tony if he were to impede the doctors from doing their job.

The doctors removed one of the IVs and replaced it with another, this one connected to one of the machines in the room. As much as Steve had been reading up on the 21st century, he couldn’t say the purpose of a single machine in that room. He was so helplessly out of his depth and realized that Tony’s life was fully in the hands of these doctors. His eyes started to well up, but he didn’t let any tears fall.

This was a foreign feeling for Steve. He wasn’t used to feeling so useless, at least not since he had been injected with the serum. When Bucky needed to be rescued, he led the mission to do just that. When the world was being invaded by aliens, he fought with all his heart and strength. But what was the use of having such strength, Steve thought, when he couldn’t even use it to save the man he loved?

“Melanotan II.”

Steve turned his head. Natasha was standing right next to him. He hadn’t noticed her sneak up on him, but what kind of spy would she be if she couldn’t go unnoticed?

“Mela-what?” Steve asked.

“Melanotan II. It’s what they believe the most prevalent drug in his system is. We found tons of vials of the stuff back at the warehouse,” Natasha said. She put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a comforting look. She continued in a soft voice, “Come into the hallway with me? I want to tell you what we know. That way you’ll be prepared. For when he’s himself again.”

Steve took one last look at Tony, still thrashing against his human restraints, before following Natasha out of the room. She led him down the hallway, but no matter how far they went, he could still hear Tony’s screams.

“Now, uh, what is this drug? Melanotan, you said?” Steve asked.

Natasha waited a beat before responding, “Melanotan II is a drug that was never approved by the US government. Doesn’t mean people don’t use it anyway. Its primary use is for tanning purposes, but it has… side effects.”

“Side effects? What side effects?”

“The three most common side effects of the drug are increased blood pressure, increased chance of skin cancer, and…”

“And…?

“And spontaneous penile erections.”

There was a silence between the two for a minute. The sounds of the hospital continued around them, but went ignored.

“Like an aphrodisiac,” Natasha said.

“I understood what you meant by ‘spontaneous penile erection’.”

“We believe that Jones administered this drug, forcing Tony to react to sexual stimuli against his will. That he raped Tony.”

Steve was stunned into silence. He could handle many things, but he wasn’t sure that this was one of them. Back in the 1940s, rape wasn’t a thing. Well, of course it was a thing, it just wasn’t something you got accused of or accused others of. He grew up being told that it was always the dame’s fault, or it was God’s punishment for partaking in homosexual relations. Of course he never believed that shit. But when faced with the reality of it, Steve truly did not know what to do. And Natasha seemed to be able to read how helpless he was feeling.

“Just be there for him. Be patient and give him time,” she said quietly, “I’ll be there for you if you need anything, but we all need you to be there for him.”

She walked off, leaving Steve to himself in the hallway. The image of Tony struggling against SHIELD agents, screaming his lungs out, never left his mind. Tears began falling. He made a mental note to rub them off his face before he went back to see Tony. It wouldn’t be fair to him, after what he’s been through, to see Steve break down like this.

There was no way to muscle himself out of this one. He no longer felt like a super soldier, but like the scrawny little kid in the streets of Brooklyn, who always tried picking fights with the bigger guys and lost every single one.

Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He can do this. He can walk down that hallway, back into that room, and give his lover the support he needed. He can lift Tony out of this forsaken hole he’s trapped in.

And once that’s done, he is going to find the man that did this, and make him pay.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Constructive criticism is always welcome!


End file.
